Alpine Library

Alpine, CA

​

Awards: DBIA National Award of Merit, Civic/Assembly Category, 2018

LEED Gold Certified

The first San Diego County-owned Zero Energy Certified project 

​

VDLA served as landscape architecture consultant to the CW Driver design-build team that was selected to design and construct a new 13,500-square-foot branch library for the County of San Diego to serve the community of Alpine and the surrounding areas. The architectural team, led by Ferguson Pape Baldwin Architects and Architect Manuel Oncina, successfully designed the first County-owned zero energy facility. The Alpine Library has achieved both LEED Gold Certification through the USGBC and Zero Energy Certification via Living Future Institute.

​

The new library is integrated with a neighboring park, the Alpine Community Center and an existing Veteran’s Wall of Honor. VDLA coordinated with a certified arborist to guide the preservation of existing mature oak trees on the site, one of which provides a shaded canopy to an elevated outdoor deck space for library patrons. Also serving the local community is an outdoor stage which faces the park, and is also visible from an outdoor terrace along the entire building frontage overlooking the park. Low-volume irrigation and native or drought-adaptive plantings provide accents to the building, including terraced planters along the park.

​

The Alpine Library is a LEED Gold certified facility, and was also was featured in “Building Catalog: Case Studies of High Performance Buildings,” a database developed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, for its highly efficient energy performance. The project also received a DBIA National Award of Merit in the category of Civic/Assembly in 2018.